Joachim Baan, who designs under the name Anothercompany, recently refreshed his site with some really great new work. He’s got pieces from all over the place, in all kinds of mediums. One of my favorites is the poster he did for the project Connected, where you ‘remix’ someone else’s poster design. It’s funny how gray can be so expressive!

I love love love this redesign by Moving Brands of Saville Row tailors, Norton & Sons. Not only redid their logos and marks, they also helped re-shape their entire brand including their storefront. There’s something really elegant and simple about the rebrand that I’m really enjoying. I also think it’s rad that their crest was “awarded by a Prussian emperor in the 19th century.” Too cool.

I thought this article about Newsweek redesigning their magazine for a niche community was an interesting read. With so many magazines closing these days, it’s kind of cool to see one of the old guard taking some drastic steps to keep their doors open.

A deep-rooted part of the newsweekly culture has been to serve a mass audience, but that market has been shrinking, and new subscribers come at a high price in call centers, advertising and deeply discounted subscriptions.

â€œMass for us is a business that doesnâ€™t work,â€ said Tom Ascheim, Newsweekâ€™s chief executive. â€œWish it did, but it doesnâ€™t. We did it for a long time, successfully, but we canâ€™t anymore.â€

The magazine will replace its thin paper with heavier stock that is more appealing to advertisers and readers. It will also put more emphasis on photography. Pages of a mock issue that Mr. Meacham displayed in his office on West 57th Street in Manhattan show a cleaner, less cluttered layout that has more open space and fewer pages that seem an uninterrupted sea of words.

It sounds to me like they’re trying to turn themselves into Monocle, which with it’s $10 price tag and luxury advertisers in every issue, isn’t a bad move. I just wish they’d redesign that logo of their’s. The red block is iconic, but that type needs to be refreshed and re-set.

Friend of +KN Damien Correll has finally updated his website with a ton of new projects and it’s looking mighty sharp. He’s got work from 2006 to the present, all of it full of great colors and textures. It’s also really great how simple and straightforward the whole thing is, and I love that you can click an image and get a larger view as well, I hate when all I get is tiny JPG’s. I think my favorite pieces are his contribution to the newest issue of Faesthetic, the (sadly) scrapped cover for Atypica, and the AMAZING stack of meat shirt he did for Sixpack. I think any and all things related to meat are great, call me easily amused.

The New York Times has an interesting article on a newly redesigned milk jug that’s starting to be carried by some Walmarts and Costcos here in the U.S. The jug was created because of the inefficiency of the traditional milk jugs shape. Because of the way traditional jugs are shaped, they have to be transported in crates 4 at a time, while the redesigned jugs can be stacked on top of each other and put on pallets. By packaging and shipping them in this new way, it’s possibly to ship 50% more milk at a time. This means savings in a number of different areas including at the register, where the newly designed jugs have dropped in price from $2.58 to $2.18.

But what’s interesting is that the people who’ve used the jugs aren’t totally thrilled by it. In a demonstration given by a Costco employee, she suggests setting the jug on the table and then pouring. To me this just sounds like a poor design decision. Why the hell does the opening need to be THAT big? It’s looks like it’s almost 2″ across. I just think it’s funny that no one took ergonomics into account, they just wanted to ship out more milk faster and cheaper.

I also completely hate the shape, it looks like it was put together by an engineer, not a designer. More than anything though it looks like a detergent bottle, and the fact that I related the jug of milk to detergent is pretty gross. Someone should really design a milk container that’s not only practical in many ways, but looks sexy as well. Why shouldn’t milk be sexy?

With American Craft Magazine’s big redesign last month, it’s only fitting that they also gave their website a makeover as well. The site takes on a lot of the style that the magazine has, and even lets you read the main feature from the new December/January issue, featuring Steven and William Land. There’s also a blog type section that covers books, galleris, people and places, as well as things going on around the net. In addition to all of that, they also have a calender section to check for upcoming shows. You can even narrow down your search to your local area.

Overall the redesign looks awesome, and is definitely carrying over the clean and modern vibe the magazine gives off.

I just popped over to Newstoday, thinking that since I was sitting in a hallway all alone, I wouldn’t disturb anyone with the loud, “Newstoday…” jingle. I went, and to my surprise, Newstoday, and it’s wonderful tune weren’t there anymore, but replaced by QBN, the main part behind Newstoday. That’s the best possible way I can think of describing it.

The redesign looks really nice and simple, and quite possibly more fun. All of the main elements of what Newstoday was about, but makes it slightly easier to access. There’s not as much of an information overload anymore. Other blogs like Core77 and Treehugger need to take a cue from this redesign. Less is so much easier to process. It feels like these blogs are getting out of hand with the amount of content they’re trying to get out to people.